News

2018-02-28

Exhibition “In the Time of Coil Spring” at the Mykolas Žilinskas Art Gallery

On Thursday, March 8, at 5 p.m. the Mykolas Žilinskas Art Gallery (Nepriklausomybės square 12, Kaunas) of M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art is to open exhibition “In the Time of Coil Spring”. This is a narrative constructed from the women artists’ works that are part of the Lewben Art Foundation collection. The idea of holding the exhibition developed from "A Room of One’s Own" – a project dedicated to women authors in the foundation, whose goal is to offer interpretations of one artwork in the press.

The three-part structure of the exhibition is best defined by borrowed cinema terms: suspension, or a state of being full of uncertainty, incapacity and presentiment, straining us as coil springs; action, when things overflow and break down, everything becomes unmanageable; and resolution, which usually means only a breathing room before a fresh wave of feelings and events.

The use of the timing descriptions in the narrative is due to the fact that the time is the same for everyone, and most importantly, aims to avoid the words that paint all things in the color of the prior knowledge. It is not women’s art, which associates with gentleness and craftwork, and not feminist art, which radiates struggle and a quest for truth, and there is no emphasis on the oppositions of men vs. women, exploiters vs. victims and so on.

Still, the origin of the initiative – to focus more on the body of work by women artists, to invite the audience to experience the artworks and dive deeper into the artistic or other attitudes of each author – is based on feminist logic, which tells us that in order to balance, one needs to take some effort. This exhibition is an effort. It only shows artworks by women authors in the Lewben Art Foundation collection.

If we perceive works as film frames, the curator would have a role as an editor. Everyone could create their own film in their minds, but, in trying to summarize the images seen, it turns out that the heroes of the exhibition are not satisfied with expectations of humility, restraint or using charm. Not having consulted with each other, they cover a wide range of spheres of life (childhood, old age, erotica, culture, loneliness, friendship, inner experiences); they are courageous to talk about the most difficult experiences (aggression, fear, revenge, lust, disappointment, love, emptiness). But the experience of time in their artworks varies from serene or tense and frozen to blasting and uncontrollable – just like coil springs are.